Decals have been used for many decades for decorative effect on a variety of objects. Relatively recently, decals have been used as temporary tattoos for application to skin. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,522,864 issued to Humason. Humason teaches a decal having a porous paper backing, a water-soluble slip layer on the surface of the paper backing, a microscopically thin, flexible, extensible, water-resistant film covering the slip layer, a very thin translucent multi-color design offset (lithographically) printed on the water-resistant film, and a uniform layer of transparent or translucent pressure sensitive adhesive covering the design. Similar teachings are set forth in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,627,407 issued to Resse (1927); 2,578,150 issued to Rathke (1947); 2,941,916 issued to Akkeron (1960); and 4,175,151 issued to Eppich et al. (1979).
While suitable decals can be made by many of the processes described in the above references, the art has some drawbacks. For example, decals manufactured in accordance with the method taught in the Humason patent result in a thin flexible transparent sealer film, such as varnish, covering the ink when the tattoo is in place on the skin. The sealer film is outermost on an applied decal, and generally gives a sheen to the underlying ink that spoils some of the effect of the decal appearing to be a real tattoo. Other products described in the references are not ideally suitable for high speed production on a high speed lithographic press. Accordingly, it would be desirable to have method for making and a structure for an improved skin-safe temporary tattoo decal that can be manufactured on high speed lithographic printing presses and which avoid some of the drawbacks of the prior art.